In 1760 the Duke of Bridgwater was cutting the first canal and the turnpike roads were beginning to facilitate internal travel.
The majority of the work-people were either small manufacturers who bought the wool, wove it, and disposed of the cloth themselves, or worked on commission for some big-dealer. Nearly all of them had a by-employment in the shape of a small farm, while the women and children practically all over England were em ployed in spinning or carding. The incomes of the day were family earnings. As English cloth had almost a monopoly value the demand was steady; England grew the bulk of her own wool and was not mainly dependent on importation from abroad. The characteristic of the whole period was stability. If the orders for cloth fell off then the man had his bit of farm to fall back on — the one helped the other. Agriculture was not divorced from industry nor the work man from country employment, nor was there any marked distinction between town and country. It is probable that according to our notions the life was sordid and the standard of comfort low, and there is no reason to think that the parents were the easiest of taskmasters for the children. But the problem of the un employed was absent, and the domestic work men at all events decidedly preferred the life to that of the factory.
When machinery came it was curiously enough first of all applied to the languishing trade of cotton. The reason seems to have been that the supply of raw cotten was unlimited, while England was already on the verge of a wool famine. Sheep growing had not been started in Australia and there was no reason to anticipate that even if machinery came in the output would be largely increased. Moreover wool being more brittle than cotton it was found at first very difficult to adjust it to the strain of the machine without constant breakages. Hence wool is affected by machinery much later than cotton. Arkwright, a barber, revolution ized the cotton trade by his water frame, pat ented in 1775, which spun a yarn firm enough for the warp. Crompton followed this up by inventing the mule in 1775 which created the muslin trade; and Cartwright, a clergyman, brought out the power loom for weaving which was first used in 1801. Power spinning in the
woolen trade did not become general till the first decade of the 19th century.
The effect of the cotton machines was to create a new trade. The great manufacturing centres had hitherto been Norwich and Devizes, but the new machinery needed water power, and hence the trade settled in the North in country districts where water was available. The first machines were small and simple; were made of wood and necessitated a good deal of bending over by grown-up persons. They could easily be worked by children, but such labor was difficult to obtain in the country in large quantities, hence the massing of pauper children in these factories. There seem to have been grave abuses in the system and a new era was inaugurated by the Health and Morals of Ap prentices Act of 1802 which limited the work mg hours of apprentices to 12 per day.
The problem, however, was altered when steam came in owing to Watt's invention. It was only substituted gradually for water power, coming in more and more after 1815 and be coming the prevalent type altogether in VA°. The important thing now was no longer water but coal, and to get coal the factories had to settle in the great centres where coal could easily be brought by canal, as the cost dragging it over country roads was prohibitive for cheap production. Hence we get a second great migration of industry to the towns near the coal fields. Here child labor was readily available, and a new Act had to be passed in 1819 to meet the case of children who were not apprentices. As steam became more regularly applied the machinery got more complicated and less suitable for children of tender years, and there was a tendency to discontinue them in certain branches. They were still retained in the old water mills and the Factory Acts were never really effective till the invention of the government factory inspector in 1833.